The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education are severe and will only be fully understood in the years to come, says Costa Rica’s former education minister, Leonardo Garnier.

Mr. Garnier is the Special Advisor to the Transforming Education Summit, which takes place during the opening days of the 77th session of the General Assembly.

On this week’s episode of The Lid Is On, Conor Lennon sits down with the Special Advisor to find out why the UN is putting such a focus on education, amid so many competing global issues and crises, and how lessons can be learned from a previous education crisis, in the 1980s.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

Next Wednesday the UN marks the third International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies. However, the skies are far from clear of air pollution. Only a month ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that practically all the air we breathe is polluted, and that it’s killing around seven million people every year.

Ahead of the International Day, Conor Lennon from UN News spoke to Martina Otto and Nathan Borgford-Parnell from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

They discussed the evolving science surrounding the issue, the extent to which air pollution is improving – if at all – and why international collaboration is essential, if the number of annual deaths is to be addressed.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

On this week’s Lid Is On, Conor Lennon speaks to two experts on racism against people of African Descent, on the insidious nature of everyday racism, the importance of reparations, and why an acceptance that the wealth of developed countries is built on the back of oppressed, Black people, is liberating for people of all races.

Dominique Day is a human rights lawyer, and a member of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. Verene Shepherd is a social historian, and the chairperson of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

This episode was recorded ahead of International Day for People of African Descent, which is marked on 31 August, with support from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

Uganda’s status as a refuge has seen large numbers escaping conflict in neighbouring and nearby countries, in particular South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and living in relative safety.

Whilst many are living in refugee camps administered by the UN in the north of the country, such as the Bidi Bidi settlement, others have made their way to the capital, Kampala, and some are making an impact on Uganda’s alternative music scene.

Conor Lennon from UN News visited the headquarters of the Nyege Nyege record label in Kampala, which hosts a range of strikingly original artists from several countries, many of whom live on-site and collaborate with other musicians, whilst they develop their style, working towards critical and financial success.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

Okubani Market is located in northern Uganda’s Yumbe District, within the Bidibidi refugee settlement which, during the South Sudan civil war, was the largest settlement of its kind in the world.

The market is a vital economic hub for refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the host community, which suffered years of insecurity at the hands of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

For the last of our mini-series recorded in northern Uganda, Conor Lennon from UN News visited Okubani, to see how the support of the local government and the UN is helping those living in the region to improve their livelihoods.

Music: Within the Earth, Ketsa

Hundreds of millions of people do not have access to electricity, seriously hampering their ability to improve their development prospects.

In Arua, northern Uganda, where employment rates are low and poverty is high, the UN is supporting a company that is providing pay-as-you-go solar energy services, putting the benefits of electricity in reach of villagers who would otherwise never be able to afford it.

In this, the third episode in our mini-series recorded in Uganda, Conor Lennon from UN News heads to Arua to see the impact that solar power is having on people’s lives.

Music: Within the Earth, Ketsa

In Lumonga village, situated in a remote part of the West Nile region of northern Uganda, smallholder farmers have traditionally been cut off from the banking system, and been forced to rely on small savings and loans from their community to survive hard times.

For the second episode in our Lid Is On mini-series recorded in northern Uganda, Conor Lennon from UN News went to Lumonga village, to see how digital technology is helping the farmers to get connected, and have a better chance of getting the finance they need to buy basic equipment, grow more crops, and sell more produce.

Music: Within the Earth, Ketsa

Northern Uganda has higher poverty and less employment that the south of the country, which is why the UN is backing projects aimed at boosting the regional economy.

In “Developing northern Uganda”, a special four-part mini-series, we go to Yumbe and Arua districts, to see how the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is helping to create sustainable employment prospects for local people.

In this episode, Conor Lennon from UN News visits Honey Pride, a social enterprise supported by UNCDF, and meets one of the hundreds of beekeepers whose lives have been improved since the business began.

Music: Within the Earth, Ketsa

In our third episode looking at ocean-related issues facing the eastern Caribbean island nation of Barbados, released in the run-up to the UN Oceans Conference, we turn to the issue of the coral reef.